The Science of Child Development: Implications for Policy and Practice
Lecture and Reception

Presented by
Charles E. Carter
Deputy Director and Chief Strategy Officer,
Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University

How can we use insights from cutting-edge science to improve the well-being and long-term life prospects of the most vulnerable children in our society? This is both a critical challenge and a powerful opportunity to affect the trajectories of millions of children in the United States and around the world. It is a question of particular importance to those who make or affect policy as well as on-the-ground practitioners. This presentation will discuss how the science of child development can be leveraged to strengthen and improve policy and practice systems to better support the children, families, and communities they serve.

Charles E. Carter, Ph.D., L.I.C.S.W., has more than 20 years of experience working with low-income children and families. At the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard, he is responsible for using outcome data to drive strategic decision-making and for building the capacity of individuals, organizations, and systems to promote innovation.

About James R. Dumpson

James R. Dumpson, Ph.D., fought fiercely for the rights of the most vulnerable among us—children, the poor, the infirm, and the elderly—during a groundbreaking career that spanned nearly half a century. In 1959, Mayor Robert Wagner appointed Dumpson as New York City’s first black welfare commissioner. From 1967 to 1974, he served as dean of Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service, where his legacy of public service endures to this day. He died in 2012 at age 103. His lifelong dedication to the care of young people inspired Fordham to endow the James R. Dumpson Chair in Child Welfare Studies at the Graduate School of Social Service.